A Different Side
by Cheeselet
Summary: A few missing/extended scenes from "Discovered In A Graveyard".
1. Chapter 1

Nurse Hale entered the private room quietly, focused on her job, and was met by the familiar noises made by the life-support machines as they monitored and sustained the faltering body of the comatose man in the bed before her.

She took a moment to study him before setting to work. His complexion, though still fairly pale, was thankfully not the deathly pallor that it had been in the immediate hours after his life-saving surgery, which had been long and exhausting for the doctor and had taken a lot from the patient, the two bullets aside, leaving him extremely weak.

Moving around the bed, she carried out the observations on her patient. The ventilator and additional nasal cannula were still in place, indicating that he was still unable to breathe on his own but a once over of them told her that he was getting the required oxygen intake. Examining his blood bag, she saw that it would need replacing soon. However, a check of the heart monitor showed that his injured heart was finally managing to produce a more stable beat. Taking a hold of his lower right arm, she slipped two fingers under his limp wrist, feeling the steely throbbing beneath. She waited.

…_38…39…40…_

After a minute, she slid the pen from her breast pocket and picked up the patient chart from the sideboard, then made a note of his pulse, along with his blood pressure. Fortunately, it seemed his vital signs were stabilising, which she found reassuring, yet somehow strange. Not that long ago, his output had been barely measurable. Could the dopamine infusion administered earlier really have strengthened him so much in so short a time?

_Still, stranger things had happened._

Silently, she admonished herself for allowing herself to be distracted from her task. It wasn't her place to hypothesise how or why, that was the doctor's job. Replacing the items, she turned to the cabinet against the wall, next to the stand which housed the ventilator, from which she withdrew a vial of fluid and a syringe. She uncapped the syringe, used the vial to fill it, and then slid it into one of the many lines inserted into the man's supine body. When the contents had been injected, she retrieved the cap from the sideboard.

Hearing a slight change in his heart rate, she turned around, in time to see his eyes fly open. She watched, bewildered, as he lay there, eyes wide and…unseeing, before they quickly closed again.

"Mr. Doyle?" She called out tentatively, "Mr. Doyle, can you hear me?"

When no response was forthcoming, she reached for his wrist again, at the same time studying the heart monitor for any change in the readings, of which there were none.

_What on Earth had just happened?_

Concerned, she hurried out of the room, in search of Dr. Seigel.

She found him in his office. She knocked lightly on the door and waited, using the brief pause to compose herself. Belatedly, she realised she needn't have come out here, could have just called and asked for him to come out to the room. Well, she was here now, and—

"Yes?"

The doctor's dulcet tone sounded from behind the heavy oak, interrupting her thoughts, the monosyllabic answer neither admitting nor denying entrance. Pushing it open, she found him behind his desk, poring over some papers, or some such. Looking up from the official-looking papers, he gave her a small smile, which she duly returned, and waved her to the vacant seat in front of his paper-strewn desk.

"Ah, Nurse, what can I do for you?"

She coughed nervously and lowered herself into the proffered seat.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important, Doctor, but you asked to be immediately informed of any change in Mr. Doyle."

_Mr. Doyle… Ah, yes. The young CI5 agent currently fighting for his life in Intensive Care after being shot. Well, not young exactly, he was pushing 40. Taking into account his almost fatal injuries, it surprised him that the man was still managing to hold on. Still, a lot that could go wrong. And, like the old adage said: "What can go wrong, will"._

"Yes, that's right. Has there been?"

"Well, not precisely."

The doctor frowned at her for clarification. "What happened, then?"

Nurse Hale relayed what had just taken place, and the doctor removed his glasses and sank back into the worn leather of his own chair, his papers seemingly abandoned as he listened. Hearing what had happened, he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"I see. Well, it's certainly something, although I can't explain it. Vital signs?"

"No major change, although he has begun slowly stabilising over the past few hours." The nurse replied.

The doctor smiled again. "Good. Very good. Well, we'll continue to monitor him closely. If he stays stable and shows more improvement, then, touch wood…"

He paused to tap his desk for emphasis.

"…we'll be able to move him over to the High Dependency Unit."

The nurse nodded. "Are you going to inform Major Cowley, Sir?" she enquired politely.

Doctor Seigel seemed to ponder this for a moment, chewing on the arm of his glasses as he did so.

"No. No, not just yet. Of course, if and when the transfer goes ahead, or Mr. Doyle wakes from his coma, or deteriorates again, then I shall telephone him. I'll come along and check him over myself, in a bit. Thank you for informing me of this, Nurse."

Nodding again, she stood and left.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This bit may seem a bit out of character. If it does, my only excuse is that I'm ill and the germs have muddled my brain.**

* * *

Unfamiliar noises floated around him, coming from all directions. Strange beeps and hums, incomprehensible murmurs, and other sounds that he couldn't place. They were all jumbled and his befuddled mind couldn't make sense of them. _He wanted them to stop. He wanted to know what was happening. He wanted to know where he was._

It was only when the all-too familiar antiseptic smell caught his nose that he realised he was in hospital. _Again._

He gave an agonised groan as pain shot through him. Arching his back slightly, he clenched the blanket in his shaking fist and managed to prise his eyes open to a slit. Through his pain-blurred vision, he could barely make anything out, save for some shapes standing outside a large window. Eventually, he recognised them as people, though he couldn't tell who they were.

Two of the shapes moved off, talking. The figure that was left looked through the window, and seeing that he was awake, came through the doorway and stood at the foot of the bed.

"Ray?" the figure called tentatively.

_Bodie. _

He went to reply, but something rigid in his mouth prevented him from speaking. He moved his head around to try and dislodge it, but it wouldn't move. He heard the pace of the heart monitor speed up, then Bodie's voice again.

"Ray, calm down." His voice was tinged with alarm and concern.

He tried to, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. He'd found that the thing in his mouth travelled down his throat and was pushing air into his lungs when he didn't need it to.

His breath caught as he fought the ventilator and he knew he had to get the thing out. Panicking, he began choking fiercely as he struggled to breathe, his back arching up as he coughed, sending scythes of pain slicing across his chest. Ignoring the stabbing pain in his right shoulder, he brought his arms up and weakly grasped the tube coming from his mouth, pulling at it to try and remove it himself.

However, it still wouldn't move, the soft cotton strapping holding it firmly in place. He heard Bodie call out.

"Shit. I need some help in here!"

When it still wouldn't budge, he turned his attention to the strapping around his mouth, desperate to get the tube out before he asphyxiated.

"Ray, stop it. You're gonna hurt yourself." Suddenly, Bodie's voice was right next to him, and he felt his strong hands grasp his wrists, trying to pull them away. He cried out softly as the movement jarred his injured shoulder.

The grip loosened slightly. "I'm sorry, Ray. Didn't mean to hurt you."

More feet pounded into the small room, trying to get a semblance of control. But the commotion alarmed Doyle, who panicked and renewed his struggles to get free and get the blasted tube out of his throat. All of a sudden, his right arm flew out of Bodie's grip, and continued on until it made contact with something soft, producing a muffled cry.

Bodie let go of Doyle's other arm and reeled back, clutching his bleeding nose in his hands.

A new voice. "Right, Nurse, go and get Mr Bodie seen to. We need to remove this tube without him dripping blood everywhere."

Despite his protests that he needed to stay and calm Doyle down, he was hustled out of the room by another nurse, his last vision of Doyle being that of him being held down quite forcefully by Nurse Hale.

"Alright, Mr Doyle. We know you must be quite frightened, but we need you to calm down, otherwise we won't be able to take this tube out, okay?"

Doyle grunted, the only response he could make. Pinned down under the nurse's surprisingly forceful grip, he stopped thrashing and lay still.

"Good man. Now-ˮ the doctor was interrupted as Bodie burst back into the room. He stood rooted at the foot of the bed, ignoring the reproachful looks from the medical staff.

"Right, on three, you need to breathe out and give a big cough. Ready? On three: one, two, three…"

Bodie watched, helpless, as the tube was finally pulled free amidst wracking coughs and gasps for breath. He moved up to the side of the bed as the doctor sorted out the ventilator and the nurse jotted down results. Sitting down in the empty visitors' chair, he noticed Doyle trembling and took his hand as a measure of comfort. Doyle looked at him and tried to speak, but could only manage a short, coarse grunt. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as more pain hit him and he shifted restlessly. In pain and scared out of his wits, his hand tightened around Bodie's.

"I know, Ray. Just relax. Everything's gonna be fine."

The nurse came over and administered some pain relief and Bodie watched it take effect. Doyle whimpered, his grip loosening and his muscles twitching as the narcotics flowed around his body. It wasn't long before it won out and he was sleeping peacefully, allowing Bodie to remove his crushed hand.

The doctor left the room, to no doubt go and inform Cowley that Doyle had finally regained consciousness, and the nurse slipped quietly out after him, leaving Bodie watching quietly over Doyle's dreams.


End file.
